Poems-for-All

Many thanks to Richard Hansen, owner of the bookstore Book Collector in Sacramento, CA, for making the world a better place by publishing enchanting, miniature books. His Poems-for-All series is free for your taking at Book Collector and around Sacramento. Each one and a half by two inch or smaller micro chapbook contains a single poem from Ted Joans, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Jack Spicer, Robert Creeley, Ann Menebroker, or hundreds of other poets on the SacFreePress list.

Poetry opens the reader to a microcosmic universe. It is the opportunity, if only for a moment, to access the eternal calm that spiritualists speak of. It is, as Sara M. Larsen writes, to “show me the room/ with sliding doors/ i am a child.”

“Writing Poems is a Saintly Thing” says Peter Orlovsky “to welcome me/ into your early rise of bacon and / rolls.” Poetry helps people to share in delights, relief, and a sense of humanity. “What good is my room if/ it can’t hold all the people in the world and / chairs lonely because built for only one?” Poetry is the room that allows us to embrace contradiction. Merleau-Ponty tells us we only see these as contradictions and paradoxes because of the blind spots in our perception.

Recently a friend, or to be more honest, a guy looking to set up a third date with me, wrote a list of things he likes about me. He writes, “this whole poetry thing is awesome. It gives you the opportunity to save people like myself from Heidegger's 'everyday world' and to balance out the powers of the 'they.'”

Thank you Richard for helping to save people from the everyday drone that threatens to numb our thinking and block us from moments of calm.

It is of no surprise that Book Collector receives a five star rating on yelp. http://www.sacfreepress.com/poems/blog/2006/05/book-collector.html

And to check out images of these enchanting gifts go to Poems-for-All:
http://www.sacfreepress.com/poems/covers.html